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First thing is first: you ought to be very proud of me. Despite my HORRIFIC blogging habits as of late, I have been much better with my exercise and eating habits! I have been squeezing in (short), but effective workouts throughout the week and it has been wonderful! Last week, Jordan and I hit up a park that I haven’t been to in years for a short run/ strength workout. What I really enjoyed about the park setup was that there was a lovely 1-mile trail loop that you could run, but along the path, there were a series of strength stations! Many of them were QUITE familiar (ie: push-ups, sit-ups, bench-lifts), but some of them were pretty tricky! (I tried to locate a picture of one for you, but since I am not entirely sure of its real name, my Google searches ended up being “strength station where you lift your legs laterally and jump” and “lateral leg lift over bar playground”… needless to say, those terms yielded very few results.

Anyway, I really enjoyed being able to split up our (very short) run with little bursts of strength training and it made me start thinking of ways to break up circuits like that on my own!

I really cannot believe the difference I feel when I start running after a long hiatus. Granted, the first few days are rough, but once I get back into the groove, it makes me feel like a NEW WOMAN.

Additionally, a couple of weeks ago, I fired up myfitnesspal again and have been using that semi-faithfully. Even when I’m not 100% on my a-game for a day, it’s still nice to have someone to “answer to.”

Other than that, I have been busy, busy, busy with work! Which leads me to the tale of this weekend’s stay in a MOTEL.

Yeah, that’s right kids, this girl stayed in The World’s Most Frightening Motel for two whole nights.

Truth-be-told, I really am a pretty easy-going traveler. Sure, I love nice amenities, but if things are clean and fresh, I really don’t complain!

But this, phew. This might take some therapy in order to recover fully.

I’ll give you the Cliffsnotes version: This weekend, I had an out-of-town event that was held in a very small little lake town. There aren’t a ton of accommodations to choose from, so I was forced to sign my staff and I up for rooms at a quaint little “inn” (MOTEL. IT WAS A MO.TEL.). Fortunately for them (and maybe me, by extension), most of their rooms were “fine.” Mine, on the other hand, have so many problems, I can’t even quite figure out how to share the worst of it with you, but let’s go with the three biggest offenses:

1. When I walked in, one of the pillows from one of the beds was on the floor, there was no toilet paper in the bathroom, and it smelled like 1970.

2. In the morning, when I went to take my shower, the water temperature was SO uncontrollable that it fluctuated between ICE cold and SCALDING hot. So much so that I couldn’t even stay under it long enough to shave both of my legs. (Evidently, this was because other guests were using the showers at the same time. Well, duh! Why didn’t IIIIIIIII think of that?!??! A motel. Other guests? ONE SHOWER AT A TIME, PEOPLE.

3. Just before I went to check-out, I took a look under my bed to make sure that I didn’t leave anything behind. Fully expecting to find a sock, a magazine, an earring, maybe a quarter that fell out of my purse….boy, was I shocked to discover OPENED bags of snacks that were NOT mine. If only I had known that there were bags of dried fruit hiding under my bed. That really could have helped with those late-night snack attacks!

Fortunately for me, I was able to spend one of those nights with Chloe (who has a magical ability to make rotten situations feel magically better) and we laughed the night away as we discovered all of the “fancy” amenities that the room *actually* had to offer. (Dead spiders, lamps that didn’t work, heaters that smelled like grandma’s closet….). Even though I’d NEVER stay there again, I must say that the memories ended up being WELL worth the frustration.

I am fairly certain that my motel experience was karma’s way of getting at me for all of those terrible scary movies that I’ve made Katherine and Katie suffer through with me. OY.

Needless to say, I am thrilled to be home again.

I hope that you all had a great weekend and I will talk to you again soon!!!

Your driving time goes from, “ANOTHER red light?” to “Is that a BIRDY I hear??”

Despite the fact that the temperature is just four degrees above where it was at Christmas, suddenly, you’ve convinced yourself that you can shed your coat. In fact, bring on the capris…

The air smells a little bit different, the sky is a little bit bluer, the days are ever-so-slightly-longer and the store shelves are suddenly filling up with hollow chocolate bunnies.

That’s right, kids. It’s Spring Fever time.

I don’t know about you, but I am feeling the itch more than ever before. But this is the part where things get tricky. Sure, it’s March, but truth be told, there’s likely still some winter left ahead of us. I can’t seem to stop thinking about last year, when the middle of March brought temperatures in the seventies and wall-to-wall, sunshine-y days! I suppose I shouldn’t wait for that to happen again though.

I don’t know about you, but I am finding my winterly-muddled mind to be quite distracted by springtime thoughts!

Is there anything in particular you’re looking forward to this spring? For me, I can’t wait to begin training for my FIRST-EVER half marathon. Additionally, the months of April and May bring some (more!) exciting trips for work that I am looking forward to! (And let’s not forget my very favorite season for new clothes! Bring on the colors!)

I hope you have a great night! Let’s hope that tomorrow turns out to be a gym day… I’ve got the infamous bag packed, but something tells me that the over-crowded parking lot may prove to be enough to scare me away. Must resist the urge to run! (…away, that is…resist the urge to run away. Running is a good thing!)

My sense of time has been allll out of whack today! I don’t know what it was, but it all began with my drive in to work this morning that felt as if it took three and a half hours. It’s a long drive, but not quite THAT bad.

I am pretty positive that my lack of accurate timing had everything to do with the fact that, for some reason, my alarm clock sent me into total and complete panic mode this morning. It honked at me looong before it was time to wake up so I “snoozed” it, but ended up taking things a little too far and ultimately woke up quite a bit later than I intended to. I was quite confused by the whole situation (hey, it was early!) and I think that set the tone for my day: a confusing one.

In other news, today, I spent a good chunk of time doing things that made me feel 105 years old. I made a budget, I made a money plan, I organized my taxes. I don’t know when life matters got so serious and boring, but that was quite an exercise in frustration. Ironically, it got me thinking about the things that I used to do when I was a little kid. Every year, after my mom would file her tax paperwork, I would sit at my little “desk” at home and help my favorite stuffed animals to “file their taxes.” I used to love all of the forms and stapling and highlighting and signing. It made me feel like a grownup. What a silly, silly little child I was because let me tell you, in REAL life, filling out tax forms is literally the worst. It is so strange to think back on that now; when I used to play grocery store and “go shopping” or when I’d play school and do “homework” to mimic my older sister who was in high school at the time. Isn’t it strange to think that the things that drive us batty now could actually be considered fun at one point in our lives?

Was there ever an activity that you loved to do as a kid in an attempt to be a “grownup” that lost ALL of its appeal when you actually had to do it? I’m sure there were lots of those activities in my early years, but I’d have to say that tax-filing remains at the top of the list. (Also, what kid would ever find that even REMOTELY amusing? One who loves paperwork and office supplies, that’s who.)

Anyway, other than lots and lot of budgeting, the rest of my day was a little on the dull side.

EXCEPT FOR THE MAJOR REALIZATION THAT I CAME TO AT LUNCHTIME TODAY!

…the break room at work has a toaster oven.

I know, it probably doesn’t SOUND like a major revelation, at least not right now, but ohhhh the possibilities. The creations that await me at the noon hour are infinite!

It may sound stupid, but I have actually found myself thinking about the things that I’d be able to do with a toaster oven for lunches (think: my pizza english muffins that I love oh-so much and that are actually QUITE filling. Bam. DONE.). I’m so stinkin’ excited I just can’t wait. —-for my budget to allow me to buy english muffins and pizza sauce. Heh. 😉

Good news! I received confirmation today that I WILL be able to participate in the company competition for healthy steps. I am quite excited. The counting begins on Monday! Hopefully that little near-miss will teach me to stop putting things off! Anyway, pedometer-pickup is just days away. Stay tuned.

My calves are still killing me from a not-that-long run the other night! I’m not sure what it was that did the damage, but I feel like I competed in a triathlon! I need to pull myself together. Needless to say, I skipped the gym tonight… it was really a 50/50 deal with a) my legs feeling like they’re not properly attached to my body and b) having absolutely ZERO desire to grapple with any sort of crowd whatsoever. I decided to stay put for the night.

I am seriously hoping that there isn’t anything fishy going on with my legs… when I woke up this morning, my knee was asleep. How strange is that? I’m hoping that I had it twisted in my sleep or something along those lines, but I have never experienced that in my whole life! I almost fell right down the second I got out of bed. It was quite a disturbing way to wake up in the morning. (The sensation reminded me of those dreams where you can’t run or walk when you’re trying desperately to do either. Very unsettling.)

And now, let’s talk about bad habits. I am sure that I have several bad habits, but one that I am beginning to realize now more than ever before, is the fact that I have a terrible tendency of being very, very vague. This is something that friends have (jokingly) brought to my attention many times before, but for some reason, until very recently, it just did not stick in my mind. After FREQUENTLY finding myself repeating things, or moreover re-describing things at work or for people who may not know me quite as well as my friends do, I am beginning to realize that my frustrating habits involving pronoun usage, word omission and piece-mail storytelling need to be broken! I’m not quite sure how to go about doing that, but it’s my new (two-month-late) New Year’s Resolution! Fortunately, it’s not any sort of serious flaw or some horrendous personality defect, but I do take pride in my communication abilities and being unnecessarily vague doesn’t really jive with that.

Have you ever noticed some strange quirk about yourself and attempted to “correct” it? If so, what was it and how did you fix it?

Since somehow last night, I fell asleep on the couch and only managed to drag my tired soul to my REAL bed about an HOUR before I had to wake up anyway, I’d say it’s time for me to call it a night and skip a repeat of that whole, lovely experience!

I hope you had a great day. Happy Thursday and I will talk to you again soon.

My day at work was filled with lots of hustle and bustle for a big upcoming event. I was crunching numbers, making schedules, assembling instruction packets and doing 4,000 things at once.

All of the sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I caught something skittering across some file folders on my desk…

It was a lady bug. A pretty little lady bug that came out of absolutely nowhere in the depths of the winter cold to present itself to me on a Monday morning.

A little too eagerly, I picked it up and hoped that some of the lucky ladybug magic would rub off on me. We all know that I love my positive signs and motivational sayings and quotes. What could be better than a real, live good luck charm that came right out of the blue and landed on my desk?

Today proved to be an extremely productive day at work, but boy, was it off to a bumpy start.

I am not entirely sure what faction of Murphy’s Law causes this, but it seems to me that ANY TIME I make plans for myself for “first thing in the morning,” I end up sleeping later than EVER and rushing through my morning. I hate frenzied mornings and I am a firm believer that what happens in the moments after you wake up can really set the tune for your whole day. But this morning, I rolled out of bed about 45 minutes after my alarm went off, took twelve thousand years to get the coffee pot working and for some reason, spent about three times as long choosing an outfit and getting dressed than I typically do. There came a time where there was some serious emotional strife that was directly related to the color of my socks. I was quite a treat. Anyway, I hurriedly dumped some coffee in a travel mug and rolled out of the door with still-wet hair, no real lunch to speak of and some serious frustration.

I must say, however, that ONE of the perks of having a significant commute is having that time to get your bearings. Even though I felt like a tornado racing through the house this morning and left in utter disarray, I had PLENTY of car time to get my wits about me, let the caffeine sink into my bones and work its magic and zone out to some tuneage. Not a bad deal. (Except for when it comes to gas and mileage…eesh.)

Fortunately, it was also a GORGEOUS morning. (Albeit FREEZING COLD.) Check out the view of the lake:

Not too shabby, eh?

So by the time I got to work, I was feeling MUCH more like a reasonable, normally-functioning human being which was quite a relief. I managed to tackle some major tasks today that I was pretty proud of! Part of my morning even had me crunching numbers OLD SCHOOL style. I even figured out percentages and sales discounts BY. HAND. Yes, I know, this is not complicated math, but my math skills leave MORE than a little to be desired. I was so happy, I saved the sheet of scrap paper that I used to make the calculations. Perhaps I should stick it on the fridge. 😛

And best of all, my evening actually loaned itself to some good, old-fashioned gym time. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it before the front desk closed which meant no access to my favorite multi-activity room (that’s where I like to do my circuits/ ab workouts), but I did get a good cardio workout in which is good news. Especially since 2013 is turning out to be the Year of Races afterall! Helllllloooo 10ks!

That, right there, is my whole entire day in a heap on the floor. I was laying next to it for a while, but I managed to pry my limp soul off of the ground and find my computer just to write this little post for you. I hope you appreciate it.

The day started off promisingly enough, as you know, I prepared my whole day last night. From breakfast to lunch to my gym bag for after work, I was rearin’ and ready to go. It didn’t take too long for things to take an…interesting(?) turn. The whole vibe of my day is really pretty clearly illustrated with one short anecdote: today, the bathrooms at work were out of order for hours due to water pressure. Fun, right? Wrong. Sure, running water (or lack thereof…) can’t define a day, but it can certainly throw a monkey wrench in the whole thing!

Lunch time looked a little like this:

Although you can’t see it, the sandwich thin is filled with shredded BBQ chicken. It was quite tasty and SUPER easy to prepare. I even managed to incorporate a whole serving of fruit into this one in the form of an orange! How far we have come from the protein bars of last week!

And now, let’s talk about workouts.

So this is nothing new, but I have had (nearly) enough. Tonight, after a looooong day at work followed by an interview (this time I was the interviewER instead of the interviewEE which was a nice little switcheroo!) and some random work-related shopping tasks, I made my way to the gym to meet up with Katie. When I arrived, guess what was waiting for me….

Well, I will tell you what WASN’T waiting for me: a treadmill. Or any of the other machines that I was hoping to use. As I mentioned yesterday, I have actually really been itching for a run. It is something that clears my mind and drives me and makes me feel powerful and I love that feeling (even though that powerful bit is usually wiped away pretty quickly by feeling like the Grim Reaper is knocking on my forehead…) Anyway, I have been feeling like I’ve been a little tangled up in my own thoughts quite a bit recently and nothing does quite as good of a job at clearing that up as a nice little run does for me.

(WARNING: Gym rant ahead.)

So what did I do? I stood around for a bit, waiting around and attempting to predict when/ where a spot would free up. In the meanwhile, I did jump on an elliptical and “ran” like my life was depending on it. Eventually, a treadmill was finally available and I scooped it up right away. By that point, I was even more frustrated than I was when I got there, but I think my frustration and fury fueled a SUPER run. I didn’t go far, but it was fast and furious. I was actually pretty proud of myself by the end, but despite the fact that it was a great run, it didn’t really produce that feeling of clarity that I was so looking for. I’m pretty sure that was because of the initial stall when I first got there accompanied by the fact that the whole day was just plain infuriating. I don’t think that I actually ran long enough for it to have that de-escalating effect, but it still felt great to be being ACTIVE again. Enough was quite enough.

Now, with all of that being said, I am seriously considering switching up gyms again. It is so insanely frustrating to me to not have the equipment available to me when I finally make my way to the gym. Granted, if I were still able to go at 9:00 in the morning, I am sure that I would have the whole floor to myself again, but that just isn’t possible anymore! I counted today, there are 12 treadmills available and at the peak hours, that isn’t even 1/4 of how many should be there. When I was at college, this was the name of the game. It was a total crapshoot whether or not you’d get ANY air time with the machines you wanted. Skulking around behind the treadmills until one was available was a sport in and of itself. This was especially the case in the weeks right after New Year’s, but hey, that’s what you get when you throw thousands of students plus faculty and staff members into the same facility. That was kind of expected. But when you’re actually paying for a membership, that really doesn’t fly with me. I am not sure what the answer is, but if I can find a cheaper alternative that is still semi-convenient, it is MINE.

Anyway, better luck to me tomorrow, huh? You can’t win ’em all! Time to read and make my way to dreamland very soon! (Waking up at 5:30 takes some getting used to!!)